[...] Work or Life? Mr. Welch Says, “Choose!” [...]

Nicely put. I know a lot of men who struggle with career choices vs. family life, and many who have chosen less ambitious careers so that they can actually be a a part of their family.

Jack Welch did say that one can have a “nice career” and still have time for their family. This may sound a bit condescending, but I agree. Even before I had kids I realized the fast-track was not for me. For those aspiring for the corner office, everything outside of work has to take a back seat. That means any kind of real social life, time for family, other interests, etc. Luckily for me I was able to downshift to a career that still paid enough for me to be comfortable (although never wealthy) and still have time for my life.

As long as there are people who are willing to give it all up for the corner office, this model won’t change. Seriously, there are only so many of these high-power positions, and if someone is willing to be 100% dedicated to work they will always have the edge over those who want more balance. However, most people I have met in these positions are not very happy, and very anxious about the next young gun who is vying for their spot. I really think these “nice careers” are underrated.

Preach it!

Sing it, Shannon! The work of raising the next generation of citizens is productive work and should be treated as such – I mean, it’s considered work when a day-care worker or nanny does it, so why not a mom?

We can wish for the wholistic model, but I don’t think it’s realistic. I think Jack Welch is right. You make your choices and you deal with the consequences. Only you can decide what you can live with.

Caro (and Mistress Scorpio) I don’t see this happening tomorrow–not when a dyed-in-the-wool, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps capitalist president gets called a “socialist.” But here’s what I think we can concretely do to move in this direction: talk about it. Start getting everyone we know to think twice next time the assumption that motherhood is and should be free labor comes up. Forward this essay to everyone you know and start asking aloud, in conversations about the economy, what the GNP would be like if “private” domestic labor were accounted for. Next time you hear the phrase “work-life balance” tossed out there, say “what’s work and what’s life? Where do we draw that line and why? Who’s on which side?

We have to imagine it before it can happen.

Shannon, I’m not sure your model is realistic. Yes, being a full-time parent is a ton of work. And yes if someone else did it you would pay them. But are you saying that, since it is real work, it shouldn’t count against you if you have your eye on the corner office? If so, I can’t agree. For example, if you took some time off to work for a charity, join the peace corps, etc., this is all real work, but would definitely count against you if you wanted to become a top executive at a large corporation. (Which is what Jack Welch is talking about.) If you want that type of job, your career path has to be such that your eye is always on the goal. In the company I used to work for, it was expected that you would take management positions in different parts of the country, and the company would choose where you would be sent. If you refused (didn’t want to move your family, didn’t like where they wanted you to live, etc.) you were done as far as the corner office was concerned.

Again, looking back I really don’t see why anyone would want the corner office, but that is another story.

Now, if you are just talking about this kind of work going towards social security, I can see that. But you would also have to include lots of jobs that are valuable that are not paid.

My family is from France, and it is not that much different there. If you stray from the norm (take a couple of years off, etc.), your career is done. I actually think you have more opportunities here to go back to work, just not in an executive role. I know some French women who took extra time off (more than the standard maternity leave, which is admittedly a lot) and have trouble finding anyone who will hire them. They actually view the American model as more beneficial in this way – you can constantly reinvent your career. In France, this is just not how it works.

I agree with Mistress_Scorpio. You have to make your choices and live with the consequences.

Amy–me too with the part-time freelancing netting as much as a low-paid F/T job after childcare.

I actually like my life as it is, but I would like to get some real recognition for what I contribute besides cash (from someone other than my family, who all do appreciate and recognize it). Especially since I can’t legally marry my partner, a little retirement security, for example, or health care, would go a long way!

Amy, what country allows a woman to take 1 to 2 years off with no dent in their career? I know some Scandinavian countries allow up to 1 year between the 2 partners, but I don’t know how one person taking a year or 2 off really affects their career. (Again, I admit I know mainly about France, where taking a year off is basically career suicide.)

Shannon, thanks for pointing out the fact that some families, because they cannot get legal recognition, have an unfair strain on them. I at least could get health care while I took my “time off” from paid work.

“…the assumption that motherhood is and should be free labor”

I do think that as a wealthy, industrialized Western country, America could do more for its families. HOWEVER, I have a problem with motherhood being lumped in with labor, thereby fostering the idea that all important things can be valued as “capital”. This is the problem. We need to value things like the family unit (whatever that may be comprised of, two mommies, two daddies, whatever) but not just have it be about getting PAID. One problem with social programs coming to the U.S.–Americans don’t GET it. It’s statements like this, even from a seemingly left-leaning person, that show how capitalism is steeped into our consciousness so very deeply.

I agree with this premise and have been actively asking governments to change that traditional economic paradigm to value unpaid work as work. It was in fact a resolution adopted at the UN in Beijing in 1997 under the Platform for Action and all UN member nations vowed to finally notice and tally unpaid work. Few have actually done so though Italy now gives pensions to homemakers, Australia and Russia give a universal birth bonus, and some nations are permitting income splitting so the lower earner spouse is not considered also a lesser and dependent being. But most of our economic policies around the world still link earning with worth itself, and work with production of money. Unpaid labor, despite economists like Marilyn Waring in New Zealand, Mary Mellor in the UK, Herman Daly in the US and Isabella Bakker in Canada, is still generally ignored. But I sense the tide turning mainly because it is unsustainable to fund all care of children and care of the handicapped and elderly, for free, offered by the state so women can ‘work’. It becomes all too clear that what women were doing at home was in fact vital to the economy after all and all along they were working. Once that insight is brilliantly clear, governments are more open to the argument to fund and value labor in the home. Sweden’s universal daycare government fell recently when it had to raise taxes beyond the pale, just to support pushing women out of the home. Other nations have watched this and are trying to stay economically afloat by noticing unpaid labor, at last. It costs less to do so. The UK is now funding care of the elderly in their own home, which is where many of them prefer to be anyway. We have to do this also with care of children. Childcare is of equal value wherever it happens. Education of children happens wherever the child is too and parents are early childhood educators at least as competent as 18 year olds with a diploma. If we fund the child, with funds to flow with the child, and fund the frail elderly with funds to them directly, that is a fair system and permits families the widest possible range of options of care location, caregiver and care style.

Thank you for some fabulous international and economic perspective, Beverly. I am going to look up some of the folks you mention and hunker down to some good reading. Most hopeful thing I’ve read in a month!

Now I’m totally confused. Shannon, are you saying that corporations should stop valuing profit? That is sort of what happened in the dot com era, and look how that busted.

Trust me, I don’t believe in the money at all cost model. But in a well-run organization, treating employees well should result in better output which should result in more profits. I do believe employees should have more flexibility in their work schedules, I just don’t see that happening for those employees who have their eye on the top.

Maybe I’m not understanding you correctly. What would be the goal of a corporation then?

Before you made this comment, I was going to say the same thing that GP did – that your post seemed to think that something had to be paid to be valued, therefore being a very capitalistic-minded post. Now I have to admit I am just confused.

But Beverly Smith is talking about valuing unpaid labor, not getting rid of the profit model, from what I am understanding.

Here is the problem I have. If we stop valuing money (in the sense that there would be no corporations), how would we get our food, housing, etc.? We would have to change the entire economic model in the sense that there would be a different way to get the things we need to live.

As much as people like to say that corporations are evil, they have to make some kind of profit if they are going to pay their employees. They also create most of the things that make our life more comfortable.

My goal would be that corporations focus more on long-term gain instead of short-term gain. When you focus on short-term gain, you don’t care if you burn out your employees. It is also not a sustainable model, and is the main reason for the current recession. When a corporation focuses on long-term gain, they have to think about retaining employees, and this should result in better treatment, more flexibility, etc.

Shannon, I am with Laure68 in being confused, even after your recent comment. Can you please elaborate on what your vision is? It seems to me that in an industrialized society (which I think we all continue to want to live in), there will be work inside the home and work outside the home, and work outside the home will usually be for some other organization than the family. (I am thinking of this way of life as contrasted with a community of individual farms, for example, where most of the work done outside the house was still for the benefit of the individual family.) If someone is working for an outside entity, I don’t see how we get away from placing a monetary value on that work. What it then sort of seems to come back to is paying people for being homemakers and parents, which may ultimately be the practical realization of your vision (and I have a hard time seeing how that could be implemented fairly or cost-effectively).

It all seems like a utopian fantasy to me, and I do not mean that in a snide way. I just genuinely do not understand what your vision is, as a first instance, and how it can be accomplished practically, in the second. I would love more of your thoughts on this.

I’m not an economist, so I have no idea how to accomplish it. It may seem–or even be–utopian, but that’s okay with me. I do think there are ways to get much, much closer to an ideal even within capitalism than we are now.

I get it when people poke all kinds of holes in this vision but the thing is, there are huge, gaping, unsustainable holes in what we’re doing now. So it’s not like we can say “oh well, this is a shitty system, but it works for us” because it clearly doesn’t. Hence Mr. Welch and his spot-on observation.

I may be the fringe loony in this conversation, and I’m willing to hold down that corner while the rest of you sort out a realistic model. Consider me the Dennis Kucinich or the Carol Mosley Braun of this conversation. I am here to keep pushing our imaginations to the left in a world where the left has moved to center right.

I don’t think you’re the fringe loony, Shannon. I think you’re a dreamer, which I think is great. It is something I appreciate about you and your writings. These are ideas I have frankly not really thought about before, so I am…I don’t know, relying? on your comments to help me frame my own thinking about them. I do think that a more practical perspective is necessary to balance your dreaming, or maybe just necessary for me personally. I have a hard time thinking conceptually about grand societal re-imaginings without thinking of how to get us there, and I just don’t see it right now (however much I wish we could). I think I will check out some of those authors as well, who surely have done some heavy lifting on implementation that I would be interested in reading.

Well, in the olden days, the family unit was more respected and valued and people were more decent, maybe? A woman that spent her life as a home-maker had a husband (OK…partner! here’s where/why I support gay marriage) who appreciated that and did not leave her in the lurch in their golden years? I think it would be cool if somehow people–as people–could get back to that model, without big time societal machinations. Big government is nice in some ways but scary in others. When someone (something) gives you money, they have a say in what you do. I’d rather have that be a loving husband/partner than the government. Still, I think our programs in the US could use a little beefing up. But, with so many other issues in the economy, this is probably going to be back-burnered for some time.

Oh, and GP brings up an excellent point. The more the government gives you, the more they are in control. In more socialist countries there are a lot of things that are better than they are here, but we have a level of flexibility in our lives that they can’t enjoy. (Shannon, for example, you being a freelance writer, and doing work that is outside of the 40 hour a week norm, would be much more difficult in a socialist country. It is usually that you work full-time or you are on government assistance. And forget about changing careers.

I’m not saying one way is better than the next, but I don’t think people realize what you give up when you increase government control. I think people imagine that our day-to-day lives would be exactly the same, just with more benefits.

I have lived and worked in a few (European) countries, and this is where I get the idea that we have more flexibility here. Admittedly I know the most about France, where you choose a career at 18 when you enter college and that is it. In the US, it is never too late to go to college or change your career, which I think is great. (Of course, this applies to the middle to upper classes, and that really needs to be changed. However, a lot of European countries are still extremely classist, so I’m not sure that socialism really changes this. People do get more assistance, but find it very difficult to break out of their class.)

I have not lived in every single country, but I have to admit that after living abroad I have more admiration for the US. Can the system be improved? Absolutely! But by saying our overall system has to be completely upturned ignores that things that are indeed great here, and makes it a place that people want to come to. (I almost wanted to erase that last line, because it makes me sound like some red state nutso, but even as a liberal I do believe this.)

I just want to add how much I appreciate this discussion. Shannon, you are great to engage with the commenters so much, and Laure68, GP, Mistress_Scorpio, etc. have been interesting and fun to read. It’s given me a lot of food for thought (on an otherwise pretty dreary Tuesday).

Great site man! Has fun content to read on :) Hope you update your posts daily :D